Chivalry II
Go out without a limb in CHIVALRY II’s glorious medieval battles
To put it bluntly, this game is some of the most fun you can have on PC right now. It’s a riveting, theatrical medieval warfare game that’s equally about martial arts mastery and roleplaying as a Middle Ages buffoon. Sometimes you spend 30 intense seconds expertly dueling another player with swords, other times you’re skewered by a ballista bolt while shaking your fist and declaring that you’re “power incarnate”.
At the center of Chivalry II are 64-player team objective-based matches. These are multi-stage battles that see castles sieged with rolling towers and ladders, peasants slaughtered, and caravans ambushed. They all start roughly the same way: Both teams lined up and sprinting at each other with swords, axes, polearms, maces, bows, and more. I approach these charges by smashing the ‘yell’ key to howl stupidly, throwing my shield into the mass of bodies, chucking my sword after it, and then meeting the enemy with hacks from my secondary axe. If I’m lucky, I break through the line and chase down the cowardly archers who stopped running 50 yards short of the fight.
Subsequent lives in Chivalry II’s objective maps have quieter beginnings. You spawn a short jog away from the front line, where one team is trying to accomplish a typically medieval goal (burn the tents, push the siege towers, destroy the trebuchet), while the other stands in the way. Each map tells the story of a battle between two factions, the Agathians and the Masons, a setup that could have been superfluous, but which is treated with such comedic seriousness that it feels essential. There’s even a lore codex.
I always try to win, but treating Chivalry II like an esport is like expecting WWE Hell in a Cell matches to adhere to the rules of Greco-Roman wrestling. It’s theater. Sometimes you’ll come across two players bowing at each other, or crouching up and down. What are they doing? It doesn’t matter. Leave them be. If I need a break from blocking, kicking, jabbing, feinting, and riposting, I’ll pick up someone’s head or whatever else I can find lying around and stand around shouting.
Each map tells the story of a battle between two factions
PARRY ME
The casual atmosphere somewhat belies Chivalry II’s complex and challenging melee combat system. Its best achievement is that it is possible to fight multiple opponents and win. You could see it simply being pointless: Getting hit interrupts your attacks, so how could you have a chance with multiple enemies trying to hit you? The answer is counters and ripostes, specially timed attacks which briefly block all incoming attacks. With skill, it’s possible to win a one-on-three, and it feels like being Henry Cavill’s Geralt in the scene where he gets the ‘butcher’ moniker.
Chivalry II’s 2012 predecessor was made by modders turned pro developers, and that do-it-yourself PC heritage shows here. Chivalry II has auto matchmaking if you want, but also features a server browser, with support for custom dedicated servers on the update roadmap. The essential graphics options are all there (arbitrary resolution, unlocked framerate, FOV slider, motion blur toggle), and the art is fantastic.
It can be a bit janky, though. One time I accidentally teamkilled a guy because hucking bandages into his face registered as damage instead of healing. Bug fixes are coming, but Chivalry II will probably never be perfectly well-behaved software. (Games described as ‘polished’ tend not to be this fun, though, so maybe it’s for the best.)
New maps are also on the way, and eventually horses. Those content updates will be free. The only in-game purchase I can see is a currency that lets you unlock cosmetic items faster than you would by playing. The weapon unlocks (which have to be earned) increase your loadout options at a reasonable pace. It’s a fine way to provide milestones for newcomers, but I like playing Chivalry II because it’s fun to win fights or come up with stupid roleplaying ideas, not because I’m driven to unlock more stuff. It’s a novel idea, games that are fun regardless of how much stuff you can collect, but I think it may catch on.